


The Lot of Man

by Urist



Category: Original Work
Genre: Eldritch Fuckery, Groveling (forced) (ish), M/M, Memory Alteration, Mild Blood, Other, Weird Shit, boy I really poured some id on the page for this one, eldritch beings is it an abomination to care about your human host, fellas is it gay to host a male-identifying eldritch being inside you, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:21:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29143653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Urist/pseuds/Urist
Summary: Carwyn suddenly wakes, breathless.Searing pain spills across his chest, carbon dioxide turning over to acid in his lungs. He instinctually tries to cough, but his diaphragm doesn’t respond - Enki’s filling his muscles, slowing them.
Relationships: Chosen One Who Doesn't Want His Quest/His Magical Companion Who Can't Take No For An Answer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	The Lot of Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peternurphy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peternurphy/gifts).



Carwyn suddenly wakes, breathless.

Searing pain spills across his chest, carbon dioxide turning over to acid in his lungs. He instinctually tries to cough, but his diaphragm doesn’t respond - Enki’s filling his muscles, slowing them.

After a moment of focusing his mind, he manages to focus Enki down, driving him out of his chest and torso – and his body immediately responds. He drops into a deep breath, breastplate heaving as fresh air floods in, clears his brain.

Enki surges back up, but yielding, flowing into his limbs without making them heavy. He respects him – doesn’t touch Carwyn’s head, stays below the neck, and away from his heart.

Carwyn coughs once, twice, then he finds his voice.

“I’m up. I’m up. What’s happening, Enki?”

It’s dark outside, with frost coating the windows of the narrow room. His bones ache from the chill, but it’s nothing compared to the low buzzing rumble that vibrates his ribs and translates up to his eardrums.

“You’ve slept enough.” The voice is harsh and grating, full of sibilant undertones. “We must keep moving.”

Carwyn can’t, he knows he can’t. “My leg is _fucked up_. We need to – “

“It has been fixed.”

“I – ” Carwyn looks down – his pants are still torn and bloody, but as he unwraps the bandages, the skin underneath is clean and healed. “Enki, that’s – that must have taken so much. I want a day to rest.”

There’s a pause, then – Carwyn doubles over as Enki pours into his stomach muscles. His body snaps into a curl as he’s flung out of bed, crashing down into the fetal position on the chilly floor. “I do not have the energy to spare for your petulant whines, Carwyn. You are – this body is important. I will do what I can to maintain it, and if I decide something is not to be done, it will not be done. Am I understood?”

His abs relax, and Carwyn manages to cough out, “Yes, Enki, yes. Christ. I get it.”

“Good.” There’s a pulse of warmth in his gut as Enki strokes the inside of him, and Carwyn almost moans. “Do not disobey me again. Not when we are this close.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Then get up. And get moving.”

It takes a few moments for Carwyn to reassert his muscles, and Enki leaves him a cramp in his left bicep when he takes too long, but eventually he stumbles to his feet and carries himself outside into the chilly wet morning. Enki directs him down the road, then onto a trail into the moorland.

There’s a soft pain on one side, and Carwyn obediently shifts his direction.

He drops into a steady jog, conserving energy as best he can, and lets his mind wander. It’s strange, having an ancient… thing within his body. He’s something for Enki. Something such that Enki cannot let him die – there’s no _existence_ for Enki without him, and Carwyn’s aware he has the power here, though he’s not sure why –

Another twinge, this time in his stomach, and Carwyn speeds up, sensing their destination approaching.

But Enki can still try to control him. Carwyn’s had… time, he feels, to acclimate to it, and there’s a balance, he’s pretty sure – for reasons beyond him, he knows Enki doesn’t mess with his brain or his senses or his heartbeat, and in return, Carwyn does what he says, mostly. And when he doesn’t, for whatever reasons, Enki doesn’t hesitate to –

Carwyn stops short. He’s standing on the edge of a steep bluff, looking into a green vale almost hidden by mist. The ground is rough, boulders rising out the sea of thick grass that flows over and down the slope. At the center of it, though, Carwyn’s seeing a twisted crumple of light, arranged in geometries that should not be, throwing out colors he cannot perceive.

Carwyn’s nose is running, but when he wipes it, the back of his hand comes away red. He turns away and calls out, “Enki! Enki!”

The voice is stronger now, rumbling through him. “Do not look again, Carwyn. Keep your head down. Move closer.”

“Closer – Enki, I’m not getting _any_ closer to whatever that is. Go fuck yourse – ”

A ripple of pain runs through him as his jaw slams shut. His legs fold underneath him, and he drops to his knees, prostrated against the dewy grass. The scent is thick and mossy and tanged with iron.

“Carwyn, I will drag your wretched flesh there if I have to control you one neuron at a time. You will crawl, inch by miserable soaked sodden inch. Or, you can stand and walk, like a civilized _human_ – “ the word is full of ground glass bitterness that rattles his bones “ – and I will reward you.” There’s a caress, light touches fluttering up him. Carwyn moans into the ground, dirt and roots and grass filling his mouth as his stomach muscles shove him further down.

Carwyn nods and feels Enki release his form. He awkwardly rises, wipes the wet muck off his pants, and moves forward, too ashamed to speak. The walk is difficult, the thick vegetation snagging on his boots. Carwyn tries to look up, one time, but Enki flows into his neck and slams his chin into his chest with a screeching “I said _no_ ” before Carwyn can get more than one eye-watering second – then follows it up with a branding searing pain that coats Carwyn’s ass.

He chokes and coughs, screaming out into the empty valley as water fills his eyes, but Enki drags him down to his knees.

“I have not, you weeping excuse for a sentient life form, lived inside your wet and squishy frame for such endless lurking linear seconds only for you to _fail me_.”

His tears are still flowing, but Carwyn can feel his hands locking together behind him.

“I am so close to done, Carwyn, and so nearly out of time. You promised to obey, and you are the _only person_ who can do this.” Enki’s voice is penetrating, shaking from his femurs and ribs and spine. “So, you infuriating fountain of entropy, you will bow your head and walk to the rift. You will do so before I expire. And then you will be _rewarded_.”

Enki’s voice drops to a rumble, and moves until it comes directly from his pelvis. Carwyn twitches. “You want that, don’t you?”

He nods, tongue tied. Enki says, “I thought so. Be good.”

Carwyn puts his head down and walks.

It’s another indeterminate era before a dull spinal twinge brings Carwyn to a halt. He stands, head bent downward, even as the air around him seems to spark and bend. There’s an electric tinge in his ears. It’s a low buzzing that burrows into his head and down his brainstem.

Enki forces him to his knees, head still down. His ribs speak. “Do not look ahead. Strip.”

Carwyn awkwardly shrugs his shirt off, arms and chest puckering with gooseflesh, then fumbles at his belt buckle. His fingers are chilled by the damp, though, and he only manages to kick his trousers and underwear halfway down his calves before there’s a spike of pain inside his collarbones. Carwyn’s body locks up, and he inexorably tips forward into the ground, dirt filling his mouth once more.

“We are out of time.” Enki’s voice is no longer originating from one point, but rather emanates from every bone in his body, skull to pinky toe. Carwyn shivers as the grating tones rocket up and down his skeleton. “You have disobeyed me three times, Carwyn.”

Carwyn spits out the dirt and says, “I’m sorry! You just don’t – ”

“Silence. Understand me, young human. Up until now, I have tolerated your disobedience as an inevitable consequence of your mortal frame. But on this endeavour, I – we – cannot hope to function with it. So you will obey. I will reward you, and you will release me.”

“Release you? Enki, I’ve done what you asked, I’ve brought you to – to – ” Carwyn racks his mind, tries to remember what this site is. He finds nothing. He tries to recall what brought them here. It’s blank. There’s a cloying moment where he is positive a moment’s more thought will at least uncover what he did yesterday – but it comes crashing down with the realization that his earliest memory is waking up breathless _this_ morning, with the sure knowledge of a damaged leg and spiritual hitchhiker.

“Enki? Enki! What is – Why can’t I _remember?_ ” His voice quavers and catches in the dour air.

“I was forced to, Carwyn. You became agitated. But – I suppose you have delivered me, as promised. Would you like your reward?”

“I – I would like to know what is _happening_ , Enki! Will your reward do that?”

“Perhaps.” There’s a slight pause, and then – Carwyn becomes Carwyn Wallace, twenty-six, of just north of Cardiff. Enki becomes Enki-e-abzu, ancient and ageless, from beyond the dimensions by way of Sumer. Carwyn’s body becomes a frantic last refuge, only accessible because of the accidental stellar alignment of his birth, a safe haven for Enki’s fragile spirit. The glowing ribbons of light become a rift to space outside of space, a stable place for Enki to recharge himself. Carwyn starts to harden, despite the cold.

Carwyn and Enki become a loving but firm pair, working tirelessly for each other. Enki, a strong hand, despite the limitations of his incorporeal form. Carwyn, a headstrong and impetuous young man, always willing to risk himself for Enki’s sake, and only restrained by Enki’s careful controls. He wracks and heaves against the wet ground, remembering ghostly lashes, the sensation of pain and constraint and paralysis.

There’s more memories flooding in: Enki finding him at twenty, both alone and lost. Carwyn taking his on his role as Enki's chosen keeper, feverishly searching libraries and archives, triumphantly locating a rumored site. Enki’s rewards – sensations and pleasures, stimulations from within his own body. Carwyn’s body rolls over, unbidden, against the grass, and his hips start to rock.

Finally, Carwyn recalls that horrible night, the night before this memoryless morning – Enki explaining the imperfections of the process, explaining that his essence would have to leave Carwyn’s body, never to return. Carwyn screaming, shouting, unwilling to take the loss. His frantic attempts to sabotage his own body, anything to scrape out one more day. Enki forcefully taking control of his muscles, then locking him into a corner of his own mind. Carwyn’s mind mutely pounding against his mental prison in horror, as Enki carefully mended his body and walled his memories away, trying to make him duller, more pliable, more willing to –

The total meaning of Enki’s reward suddenly slams into the forefront of his mind. Carwyn struggles and tries to crawl away from the rift, but his body is locked stiff against the dirt by stupefying eldritch tendrils interlaced through every muscle. Enki settles hot and full into his loins, relentlessly teasing and rubbing every inch of Carwyn from the inside out. On his best day, he could only take this for so long.

This is not his best day. Carwyn lets out a juddering howl, and spills himself on the ground. His guts twist and clench as he does, and Enki’s ever-present warmth flows out of him. His voice cracks into a broken sob, the final dregs of his companion departing him forever. It coats the ground under him, momentarily still before the actinic light of the rift arcs into it and begins to grotesquely reform it into something _else_. The form grows, expands and swells and its growth pushes him onto his side – he tries to look at his interloper, but the building electric light spreads spots across his vision. Carwyn unapologetically weeps instead.

His face and cheeks are soaked by the time he recovers. His wracking cries have collapsed into low whimpers, the mist settling chill and heavy across his skin. A lance of pain shoots across his exposed ass, but before he can as much as scream, warm arms enclose him. A voice, low and layered, rolls across his ears.

“Now, Carwyn. That was just one last one for old time’s sake – there’s no need to make such a racket. You’ve taken care of me for all these years. Let me return the favor, little human.”

Enki hefts him effortlessly over one shoulder and carries him onward.

**Author's Note:**

> Not my usual bag, but very fun to write! Might have got a lil weird there.
> 
> Title is from Gilgamesh.


End file.
